December 27, 2013

Dead and Breakfast: an interview with Adam Cesare, author of "The Summer Job"

Adam
Cesareis the author a new
horror novel out through Samhain Publishing, called The
Summer Job. I had the
chance to ask Adam a few questions about the book, his writing career
thus far, and about the horror genre in general. Enjoy!

Gef:
It seems like you hit the ground running with Tribesmen not
that long ago, and since then you've been steadily carving out a path
in the horror field. How has it been for you the last couple of years
in establishing yourself as a name in the genre, with Tribesmen,
Bone Meal Broth, Video Night, and now The Summer Job?

Adam:
I had to look up when Tribesmen
came out to answer this question, February 2012, so not even two
years yet. Yeah, in some ways it feels like no time at all and in
some ways it feels like forever. I’ve put out a good amount of
stuff since then, like you said (the Sam Truman novella Bound
By Jade, too, and a collaborative
collection with Matt Serafini) and, because of the way that
publishing moves, I’ve got lots of material that’s written but
not out yet and will be in 2014.

It’s
been a fun two years, hustling, and I feel like I might be getting
some traction, if not now, soon. The best part of the whole
experience has been connecting with people I otherwise never would
have. For example Cameron Pierce invited me to collaborate on a book
with him and Shane Mckenzie, not exactly something I had to think
about. I love their work, so it was kind of surreal to be invited in.

I’m
proud of everything I’ve put out, but The
Summer Job is the most special
child, right now. She’s pulling straight A’s, is the head of
debate club.

Gef:
Samhain is trying like heck to become the go-to destination for
horror readers jilted by the sad, sordid Dorchester fiasco. How have
you found the working relationship with them thus far, and how do
like their chances of carrying the baton as the anchor in the horror
genre?

Adam:
I love working with them. It sounds
really lame, but the proof is in the pudding. They’ve got some
choice Leisure alums (with some more coming, if you look far enough
ahead on the release lineup), a really strong stable of newer guys
and gals, and the man himself, Don D’Auria, kicking ass and taking
names.

I
think it’s important to note that Leisure may have been the
“anchor” of the horror genre, certainly they were the most
visible, most reliable when it came to straight-up genre, but I think
horror has been and will continue to be alive in both the small press
and to some extent the big New York houses, too. There are just too
many good authors writing in all shades of the genre, and when you
couple that knowledge with the fact that horror is hot right now and
that it’s chic to be literate again (or e-literate, I love my
Kindle, and wordplay): we all win, readers and writers.

I
mean, Stephen Graham Jones has a book coming out with them, the same
day as The Summer Job
drops. It’s called The Gospel of Z
and it’s great, like intimidating-ly good.

Don’s
not only bringing in heavy-hitters all the time, but unique voices
that long time Dorchester readers might not expect. I can’t speak
for him and I’m not, but I’d guess that Gospel
is something he NEVER would have been able to publish with
Dorchester. It’s too risky, I think the attitude from them would
have been that you couldn’t sell it as a mass market paperback
(where you’re printing up thousands of copies and sending them to
bookstores and Walmarts) and not alienate some people who buy it
expecting a more vanilla kind of zombie book.

So
is Samhain the new Dorchester? No, it’s better.

Gef:
I read The Summer Job around the same time I read Stephen
King's Doctor Sleep, and one thing I picked up on between the
two books was an almost equal time in the limelight between
protagonists and antagonists. The point of view would offer not just
glimpses, but deeply contextualized portraits of the villains. Where
sticking strictly to Claire's point of view would have offered one
kind of story, you opted for more of an ensemble approach to drive
the story. Was that something you decided from the outset or was it
something that kind of developed as you wrote?

Adam:
I haven’t gotten to Doctor
Sleep yet, I’m always playing
catch-up with King. I have Joyland,
so by the time I get to that one the price will have probably dropped
on Sleep. Looking forward to it even more now, though, I love his bad
guys.

Originally
I had the book structured a bit differently, it was going to be
exclusively “strapped” to Claire for the first half of the book,
then switch perspectives for maybe a quarter of the book (giving us
chapters from all the secondary characters perspectives), then go
back to Claire for the finale. But as I was writing that felt too
rigid, like you said, we didn’t get enough context to place our
antagonist(s)’s actions. Not to give too much away but there are
secrets and twists in this book, so the hard part was developing
those antagonist(s), giving them a distinctive voice, but not ruining
the suspense of the central mystery. Likewise, we should always know
more than Claire but at the same time she should still be a strong
character with a ton of agency.

The
result is that the plot’s WAY denser than anything I’d written up
to that point, but it shouldn’t feel like that for the reader, it
should be easy to keep everything straight. I think I did it right.

Gef:
Is it just me or are Bed & Breakfasts inherently evil?

Adam:
I’ve never stayed in one, but the
first time I do I fully expect to be brutally murdered.

Gef:
For decades, small towns have been a go-to backdrop for horror. I've
seen old B-movies from the 60s about city-dwelling twenty-somethings
becoming stranded in seemingly cozy small towns, only to wind up
running afoul of someone or something. Is this just playing on the
classic rural vs. urban tug-of-war that takes place in the economy
and culture, or is there some other angle to it I'm not seeing?

Adam:
I think it’s a trope that probably
will be less and less effective in the coming decades.

Everyone’s
connected. You have to go really far out to the boonies to get “off
the grid” and I think eventually you won’t be able to at all. I
tried to play with that here, in this book. When Claire first gets to
the town, Mission, she misreads the folksiness of the hotel as a
post-college kid who’s been living in Boston probably would: “Oh
these people are hicks, life is simple here and I’ll be able to
relax.” But then she meets the town’s young people and their
parties are maybe exactly like the ragers she was trying to get away
from. She finds the place through Craigslist, everyone’s savvy,
even the people who traditionally aren’t supposed to be. So people
are the same all over, except in a small town maybe it’s easier to
get away with stuff.

Gef:
So, with The Summer Job being released in the middle of winter, do
you by any chance have a Christmas story set for release this summer?
If not, what is next on the slate?

Adam:
Ha! I hadn’t even thought of that, but
now maybe I would.

My
next book will be pretty soon after The
Summer Job, which is awesome because
I hate waiting. It’s a crime novella called The
First One You Expect and it’s
about a micro-budget horror filmmaker who gets caught up in a murder.
It’s a bleak noir (oxymoron, I know, but I want to stress the
bleakness) and it’ll be coming out from J. David Osborne’s Broken
River Books in February. They’re a new publishing outfit, but jeez
do they have some strong authors, simply ridiculous that I snuck in
there. The covers are all by Matthew Revert.

Gef:
Well, a big thanks to Adam for stopping by the blog. As for the rest
of you, you can find out more about The
Summer Job by
visiting Samhain Publishing, or check out Adam's blog, or just head
on over to Amazon.com and order a copy right now.